Emma Wilson Speaks: Working with UMeed

Emma Wilson, a former Brand Controller from L’Oreal with a CGMA qualification, joined us in Hyderabad in India with 7 other international volunteers, including her partner Paul Goff. Emma and Paul wrote a blog about their experiences in Hyderabad, including this post about working with her women’s empowerment and education client, UMeed.

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Umeed was founded by two young women, Gauri and Udita, who train women from the poorer communities in Hyderabad on how to make eco-friendly, simple and beautiful household products out of recycled materials. By selling these products the women can then start to contribute to their household income, thus positively impacting the lives of their families.

Through weekly workshops, Udita and Gauri empower these women by targeting the following 3 important areas;

1) Teaching life skills such as budgeting, planning and collaboration

2) Altering mindsets from oppressive to progressive ones

3) Giving women exposure to opportunities they would not otherwise get

Over the last 5 weeks of working together Umeed have made progress around many areas of their business; building a business strategy, focusing on the team structure, implementing a new financial forecasting tool and most excitingly the prototype for their website is almost ready to be launched!!

Gauri and Udita’s determination, dedication and passion towards Umeed shines through and I feel incredibly privileged to have worked with them.

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If you’d like to work in India in May as a Social Enterprise Consultant, alongside social entrepreneurs who are a part of UnLtd Hyderabad‘s new cohort of incubatees, then please email us your CV by 1st April to info@socialstarters.org. We will also be running further programmes in August & October.